Summer Alone
by Invisible Extinction
Summary: Hermione is home for the summer again, doomed to face her abusive parents alone. Unable to cope without her friends, she turns to something unexpected.
1. The Beginning

I do not own any of the characters in JK Rowling's books.

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_She sat there in the dark, over come with her anger, she picked up a knife in the kitchen and went at her wrist with it._  
  
Hemione sighed, this wasn't working anymore than it had been for the last hour. Since yesterday, when she first came home from school for the summer, the pile of papers by the trashcan had grown. Hermione got up from her desk and lied back onto her bed looking up at the ceiling. She had a story due in her Muggles-Relations Summer Writing Class tomorrow and she was trying to draw upon her own problems to create a story, but it was harder than it seemed. Hermione closed her eyes and counted to ten, trying to take the approach her Mother had suggested every time she was angered, but by the time she got to seven she'd fallen asleep. "Girl, get your ass down here right now." Jeff screamed.

Hermione jumped out of bed and stumbled down the hallway, glancing at Alex, her brother, who was looking out his room frightened. She flashed him a small nervous smile and then raced down the stairs. Hermione tripped over the last stair and fell at the feet of her step-dad, Jeff who was standing at the doorway of the kitchen.

"Get off the damn floor." He demanded, yanking her up by her arm. She stood up quickly and quietly looked down at the floor trying to avoid eye contact with her mother. She was use to this; she could get through it without getting in much trouble as long as she kept her mouth shut.

Jeff picked up her purse off the table and dumped it's contents onto the floor. Hermione cringed and closed her eyes, knowing what was coming. The letters...she'd screwed up again.

"How many times do I have to tell you you have to have permission before sending out these letters to your so called friends? Do you think I'm stupid? I know everything that goes on here, Hermione, I see every thing you do. You can't get by this, so you might as well start realizing that you'll always be under my control. The phone is mine, we've gone over this before, and you can't handle the responsibility."

"But I was just asking Ron about a homework assignment..." the tears were coming, but he had seen enough of her.

more to come..and in case you didn't pick up on it..the italicized words is what hermione is writing..

"Get out of my sight." He growled. Hermione bit her tongue and stormed out of the room, tears streaming down her face she ran down the hallway past her brother's worried face and into her room.

"I could call Harry...he has a phone...but his family would throw a fit. I can't write Ron..." feeling completely alone, Hermione sat back down on the bed, wondering how she would survive one more summer away from the people that mattered.


	2. Wrong Directions

_She grabbed the sharpest thing in sight and slashed it across her veins that showed lightly through her pale skin. Red beads came to surface, spilling over the relief came and...and..._  
  
Hermione looked up and listened. Everything seemed to have calmed in the house. She glanced at her clock, the red numbers glared at her: 8:38. Hermione jumped up and walked to her door, parted it slightly, and looked down the long hallway towards her mom and Jeff's room. The door crack showed the slight glow flickering from the television that illuminated their room throughout the dark night. Her mother had changed her sleeping habits once she met Jeff, and they both went to bed quite early in the night. Hermione glanced at her brother's door which was shut, and she knew he too must have fallen asleep.

She quietly creaked the bathroom door open and examined herself in the mirror. She stood there not knowing how much time passed, just looking at the new bruises that were forming on her arm after falling earlier. So many supposed accidents lately...why hadn't her friends noticed? She pondered over it for a few, but quickly shook the thoughts from her head, stripped and stepped into the shower. The water dripped off of her, and she willed it to take the pain with it to let the anguish wash off of her. But it didn't—the water couldn't take away anything with it anymore. Hermione reached for her razor and brought it up to her arm. She closed her eyes as she ran the thin silver blade across her wrist, it dug in like a cat digging it's claws into your skin. She sighed as the relief came, blood dripped down across the tile, down the drain, her pain temporarily going with it.

Hermione finished her shower and quickly pulled on pajama pants and a t- shirt. Towel over her head, she quietly walked downstairs and flipped on the television. Hermione browsed through the channels lazily, and settled on a Lifetime movie, Stinging Secrets. It was your typical Lifetime movie, a girl trying to overcome her problems, in this case, depression, it ended suddenly, with the girl overdosing.

Hermione switched off the t.v. and walked upstairs to the linen closet, and looked through the top shelf. Slowly, she took two of every pill in her hand, and headed back downstairs. She sat in the middle of the dark kitchen and slowly took all of the pills—12 total. Hermione didn't really know what she was doing, she just decided it was something new to try, a new way to end the pain.

After taking the drugs Hermione went back up to her room, and closed the door. She stood leaning against the door with her eyes shut for a few minutes, wondering what she had just done. Slowly she sat down at her desk and went back to work on her story.

_She grabbed the sharpest thing in sight and slid it across her veins that showed faintly through her pale skin. Red beads came to surface, spilling over the relief came, the way a summer storm quickly comes in over a valley, spreading relief throughout her body. This was the definition of peace, she knew it in every way. It was her only relief, the only way she could go on, nobody understood..._

Hermione's mind went blank, and she sat down on her bed, a strange feeling came across her. For the first time she could ever remember, she felt completely empty.

It was pure bliss.


	3. Pain Gone Unknown

She woke up in the morning feeling completely refreshed. Remembering the events of the night before, she read over her story and was satisfied with it's questionable ending. Hermione grinned and dashed out her room down to the kitchen to clean up her purse from the events of the previous evening.

"Finally cleaning up her own crap I see." Jeff sneered to Hermione's mom. Hermione gathered her things, dashed up the stairs, and headed straight to the linen closet. She grabbed a few bottles and took them to her room. Hermione slowly took 17 pills and smiled as the numbness slowly seemed to cleanse her soul, then skipped down the hall, shouted goodbye to her mother, and walked to the bus stop.

Work passed quickly, Hermione passed the people she worked with without them noticing a thing was wrong. It got easier each day that she ODed, it was so much simpler than trying to talk to anyone. Things at home however, got worse, the screaming, the hurt...it was too much for Hermione to take. ODing and cutting were her only escape—her only true friend, the only one that would never leave.

Hermione wasn't stupid, though and she knew what ODing was doing to her stomach, and so after a few weeks, she quit. She was so proud of herself for quitting. Still, she continued cutting, it was her true release from the pain...from life.

_ My Sanity _

_Silver blades  
Pink handle  
My need _

_Swift cut  
Red beads  
My secret _

_Thin strands  
Spilling over  
My relief_

_My need   
My secret  
My relief  
My sanity_  
  
Hermione looked up from her paper and smiled. Her writings had seemed to improve in the past few months. Occasionally, her teachers would ask about the meaning of the poem, but in the same way that Hermione did when they asked about the cuts on her arm during the school year, Hermione would gracefully write it off and say it was nothing.  
  
A loud crash downstairs shook Hermione from her thoughts. Muffled screams provoked her to quietly walk down the hall to see what was going on.

"You're too damn stupid, boy" Jeff was screaming at Alex. Hermione could see Alex lying on the floor, trying not to look scared. "You are hurting me, please stop." Alex whimpered. Jeff had Alex in a headlock on the floor. Trisha went back upstairs as soundlessly as she could. She sat in her room and cried for what seemed hours, knowing there was nothing she could do.

Downstairs they were still screaming at Alex, when Hermione quietly went down the hallway and grabbed a bottle of Tylenol PM—sleeping pills. Back in her room, she silently counted the pills...twenty nine, thirty, thirty-one...fifty- six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight. Out of a bottle that originally held seventy- five. Trisha took them all, one by one, knowing the numbness would be there soon.

_Suicide Note   
Splattered   
Red drops   
Across the room   
Scattered Memories  
From your youth   
Senseless   
Thoughts   
Of what's to be  
Silent   
Tears   
For what they'll see  
Shredded  
Letters  
Of goodbye  
Suffering   
Last breath  
And then you die   
_

Half an hour had passed, and Trisha was still feeling the pain, crushing her from the inside; making brutal stabs at her heart. She cried out in agony and then fell to the floor, shaking.

She grabbed the sharpest thing in sight and slid it across her veins that showed faintly through her pale skin. Red beads came to surface, spilling over the relief came, the way a summer storm quickly comes in over a valley, spreading relief throughout her body. This was the definition of peace, she knew it in every way. It was her only relief, the only way she could go on, nobody understood...


End file.
